A Proposal of Sorts
by Hannah Tennant-Cumberbatch
Summary: Then one day the Doctor taps her on the shoulder and she turns around and he's holding a silver ring in his hand, she can't help but grin."Will you?" 11/Clara oneshot.


_A/N: Just a cheeky little oneshot before I go back to school. Very, very fluffy. Please review/favourite! I'd love to know what you think!_

_And... I've been thinking about making a tumblr. Not sure though. What do you think? I could post all my 11/Clara on it :3_

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything._

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**_A Proposal of Sorts_**

Clara Oswald never did like the idea of marriage.

This opinion had always been etched into her mind since childhood: she'd never liked or craved the need to have someone permanently glued to her, probably the reason why she'd never had a long term boyfriend. She just couldn't _stand _having to devote herself completely and indefinitely to one particular person when there were _so many out there. _So many people with so many different stories to tell, and she loved a story. But when that one person you end up with runs out of stories, what is there left? Nothing. Just years and years of repetition and marital spats and sleeping and work and just normality. _Boredom. _

Well, according to her, anyway. And she wasn't planning on that opinion changing at any point in the future. Clara had always been pretty set on her opinions.

Although, secretly, she'd always hoped for a Disney-esque love story like her mum and dad's; two complete strangers, a leaf and an angel that saves you physically and mentally. She'd saved his life in so many ways; with her smile and her 'oh my stars' and the love she was prepared to give to a man who hadn't received any.

Dad often said that he just looked in mum's eyes in that first moment and swore that he'd spend the rest of his days with her. Sometimes, though, fate has other ideas and mum's _forever _was a lot shorter than dad had originally anticipated. They had so many brilliant years together _but not enough._

And that is yet another thing Clara worried about. Being married to someone she actually _did _love and then him being torn away before their time was up. Being left alone. Abandoned. She'd seen her dad in the weeks, months, years after mum died; he just wasn't the same. He was broken and haggard and forgetful, because _his Ellie _had been ripped from his life and no-one could possibly replace her.

Clara didn't want to end up like that. The one mourning over _her _husband's gravestone and feeling that no-one could ever come into her life that could give her the same feeling that _he _did.

So, on her eighteenth birthday, under the influence of some very heavy vodka shots and probably a lot more tequila, she vowed that she'd never let a man close enough into her life that that her heart would break and shatter like her dad's had already. She was doing the smart thing: pushing people away before they got near enough. She was sparing herself the pain and the tragedy.

So far, so good. Twenty-four years old and she hadn't had a boyfriend that had lasted more than three weeks. She'd never been beyond a fifth date; she'd never walked hand in hand along a beach at night with the stars shining down. She'd never kissed someone for the second time and it feel like the first, she'd never hugged someone so tight that she'd never want to let go.

But, then, she had to meet _the Doctor _didn't she? That stupid alien with the blue box and two hearts and the bowtie. He _had _to go and make her change her mind, didn't he? A mind which had always been so set and determined and stubborn all her existence, then that one man just had to barge his way in there and move things around with as much subtlety as a giraffe on rollerblades.

But, the Doctor, he was so different (well apart from the whole alien thing… probably? Her year nine admirer did have an inhuman amount of acne) to all the other men who had tried (and failed) to let themselves into Clara's life. He spoke so much nonsense which she frequently couldn't decipher and a haircut which resembled that of a demented toilet brush, yet he cared about her in a way she thought no man could possibly suffice. The way his hands just lingered that little bit longer round her arms when he pulled her out of the vault that one time in the Russian submarine; the way he slightly cups her face when she's done something particularly amazing and she knows it but he feels the need to let her know anyway.

And, best of all, he never ran out of stories. He'd always have a new story to tell, about the time he solved a murder mystery alongside Agatha Christie and how he watched as the town of Pompeii burned as Vesuvius savaged it, leaving no survivors. She never questioned his actions or disapproved, she just _accepted _it. Because he was an incredible person that did incredible things. She accepted that people died, that's what _happens _in life, and for him just to carry on with all these deaths on his shoulders was just… _Incredible._

So, when one day the Doctor taps her on the shoulder and she turns around and he's holding a silver ring in his hand, she can't help but grin.

"Will you?" he asks, holding this precious bit of metal between his forefinger and thumb like it's the most valuable thing in the universe: which, it could be, for all she knows.

She just stares at him for a few moments which feel like forever but are, most likely, just a few moments. Her eyes flicker from his to the chrome object in his fingers and they can't help but glisten with tears that are yet to fall.

Clara Oswald is _not _soppy. She does not cry at romantic films, cheesy attempts at romance which are in no way true representations of what occurs in reality.

Clara Oswald does not let men close enough into her life for them to break her heart in two. Clara Oswald definitely does not attach herself to one man and one man alone for the rest of her existence.

But then, she looks back up at the Doctor, this impossible person, and she realises that maybe he isn't a _man, _so to speak, _at all. _He's not people. He doesn't belong under that stereotype.

Underneath his shirt lie two, solid beating hearts; his life, his memories, belong in those two muscles. They've felt so much and broken so many times that she's surprised that they've managed to remain intact at all. But do two hearts mean that they're more or less susceptible to pain?

He's one thousand years old. He's loved so many and lost just as much. He doesn't _propose _that easy, he has to way up the options first. With River, it was different: he married her in that parallel reality in order to save the universe and all the other universes. He's not married to her; not really, he married her in the teselecta because he _had to. _Not officially. But Clara, this was genuine. This was for love, for friendship, for never letting go. He has to remember that the little human girl he's devoting his life to will grow old and fade from him eventually; just like all the others he's had the priviledge of travelling with before. But, it's true; she will break his hearts at some point in the future when she does flare from his grasp, but not for a long, long time.

Not long enough, but enough to satisfy him. Long enough to know that the time Clara has he wants to share with her. And this link, this proposal, is the bond which will bind them both together until her final day.

If she says yes.

And then she gives him her hand: Clara Oswald isn't the marrying type. She doesn't like linking herself to one man, not at all.

But he's not just a man.

She grins, the most perfect smile gracing her lips with that added element of cheekiness and flirtatiousness. Just one word escapes her mouth, and it's the best, most brilliant word in the whole of universe.

"Yes."


End file.
